This is really happening!

Yes, it was last week when I shared that I was going to re-do my stairs. And yes, Steve brought me the stairs treads last week, but until I actually starting staining the wood on the treads did this become real.

My final push to actually go for it and forget the possibility of returning the wood treads and getting my money back was when Wade and I had this conversation:

Wade: Are you really going to re-do the stairs?

Me: Yes.

Wade: There’s nothing wrong with them. The carpet is fine and in good shape.

Me: <silence>

Wade: I really don’t want the stairs to be painted and stained wood.

Me: <silence> and a long pause…..with a deep breath.

Me: That’s okay, I really don’t want a depth finder for the boat and a new grill.

Wade: <silence> and a long pause……

Me: How about if you enjoy the depth finder and grill and I enjoy re-doing the stairs?

Compromised reached and sealed with a kiss.  🙂

The first thing I had to do was clean up my area of the garage. We had a warm sunny 50 degree day so I could finally spend more than 20 seconds out in the garage without 200 layers of clothes to keep warm while working.

How satisfying is this before and after?

I have a total of 16 treads to condition, stain and seal. Today I finished 10 of those 16.

The pre-stain conditioning step was pretty straight forward. I used a 4 inch sponge tip brush and evenly coated each board.

After the ten boards were all conditioned and stained I can’t exactly say that this step made a big difference. But, I didn’t have a non-conditioned board to compare so I guess it was better to condition than not to.

My next step was to take a walk with Nikki and enjoy the sunny day.  🙂

After reaching my 10,000 steps for the day, I returned to the project at hand and starting staining.

On the first board I used a brush to put the stain on. On the second board I used a mate less (previously)white cotton sock.

Loved the ease and control that the sock allowed. I pretty much slopped on the first coat, quickly made longer strokes to even the slop out and on the final application made one long even swipe from side to side always moving with the grain.

The board was set aside for a bit as I worked the same process on the next board.

When the next board was complete, I went back to the previous board and wiped it off with a clean white sock. How long you leave the stain on and how firmly you press with the clean white sock will determine how dark the stain becomes.

Here is a peek at 3 finished tread boards.

Tomorrow will be a day of applying polyurethane and then repeating the process for the final 6 boards.

Stay tuned!

Wendy